Election day 2014 is a big day for Williams College. In Massachusetts, Martha Coakley ’71 is running for governor. In Virginia, a pair of Ephs are battling each other for a spot in the US House of Representatives. And in San Francisco, twenty-nine-year-old Stevon Cook is making his first bid for elected office as a candidate for the city’s School Board.

In many ways Cook’s story is the most remarkable. Born and raised in public housing in San Francisco’s Bay View region, Cook struggled to find his way in a world set against him. He was educated in failing public schools, saw drugs and alcohol break apart families of friends and loved ones, and watched as many of his childhood peers lost hope for a better future.

Arriving at Williams in the fall of 2004, Cook took pride in the fact that he had defied the odds. Thousands of miles from his home, Cook saw Williams as the launching point for a life of impact. He harbored visions of himself as the first black governor of California.

But Williams was difficult. Cook had always prided himself as being a top student, but he quickly found himself struggling to stay in the middle of the pack. It wasn’t until junior year that he joined his first extracurricular group – a public service organization called the Griffin Society. “The people who would be most surprised that I’m running for public office would be the people I went to college with because I was not, not, not that type of person at Williams.”

Election day 2014 is a big day for Williams College. In Massachusetts, Martha Coakley ’71 is running for governor. In Virginia, a pair of Ephs are battling each other for a spot in the US House of Representatives. And in San Francisco, twenty-nine-year-old Stevon Cook is making his first bid for elected office as a candidate for the city’s School Board.

In many ways Cook’s story is the most remarkable. Born and raised in public housing in San Francisco’s Bay View region, Cook struggled to find his way in a world set against him. He was educated in failing public schools, saw drugs and alcohol break apart families of friends and loved ones, and watched as many of his childhood peers lost hope for a better future.

After stints in banking and politics, Cook found his calling working in the same schools that failed so many of his peers. He overcame numerous challenges along the way, including a period where he took odd jobs off Craigslist and maxed out credit cards in order to pay the bills. I met Cook near his home in San Francisco in July to learn about the ups and downs of his remarkable journey.

During his first summer after graduation, while canvasing door-to-door for President Obama’s campaign in Colorado, Dave Marsh ’12 encountered a man who demanded to know the purpose of his visit. When Marsh explained that he was part of the campaign, the man promptly reached back and pulled out a large handgun, cocked it, and pointed it directly at Marsh’s head.

Welcome to life outside the purple bubble.

Two years removed from graduation, Marsh, a political science major from New York City, has translated his deep-rooted love of politics into work on three campaigns. After stints in New York, Colorado, and DC, he returned to Massachusetts last spring to help Don Berwick, the former Director of Medicare, in his bid for governor.

Crisscrossing the state in his beat-up Honda Civic, Marsh spends long hours meeting with issue experts, crafting policies, and answering voters’ questions. It’s a hectic schedule, which has him slated to take exactly three days off between February and September’s primary. I recently caught up with Marsh in his Cambridge apartment to learn about the ups and downs (see gun story above) of his education in real-world politics.